Preserves in Action: Curried Pumpkin Coconut Soup

Last November, I hacked apart a giant pumpkin, simmered the chunks in boiling water for a few minutes, packed the pumpkin into jars and pressure canned them for 55 minutes. I did it as an exercise, to see how it worked and to show that it could be done.

At the time, I stated that I wasn’t sure if it was a recipe that would go on my regular roster of canning activities, because really, winter squash keeps so well as it comes. Why go to the trouble of processing it?

Fast forward 11 months and I have devised a use for these jars of pumpkin that is so good that I am penciling in more pumpkin canning next week. Here it is in simple, math problem form.

1 small onion + 2 tablespoons curry powder + 2 pints pressure canned pumpkin + 1 can coconut milk = the most delicious and quick soup ever. It is a pantry meal that can be made for dinner in just 15 minutes and it gets better after a night in the fridge.

When you pressure can pumpkin, it is cooked into deep submission. When I opened the jars, the cubes were so tender that they lost their form with the slightest pressure. They don’t need any additional cooking time, so the soup is done as soon as the onions are tender and everything is heated through. I used an immersion blender to zap it creamy and joyfully ate it for lunch for three days straight.

30 responses to “Preserves in Action: Curried Pumpkin Coconut Soup”

For a blustery day like today, this sounds lovely. Could inspire me to finally learn how to use my pressure cooker… yes, pumpkin stores well in its own natural shell, but as soon as you need even a little, you have a LOT of leftovers on your hands.

There IS a good reason to can winter squash cubes – have you ever seen a whole Hubbard squash? There is No Way a family could eat a whole one before a large part of it went bad…
Not quite adventurous enoough to pressure-can yet…but I’m leaning that direction!

This looks wonderful! I wonder if you have any tips on how you would make this using a fresh pumpkin (rather than homemade pressure cooked or store bought). Or rather, about how much fresh pumpkin would you use? 2 pints? And do you have a favorite way to cook pumpkin you plan to use in a soup 🙂

The great thing about making soup is that you can really be creative with the recipe and alter it to your taste and preferences.

I like two different methods:
When I’m cooking down pumpkin or any winter squash for soup I usually start with about 4 cups of vegetable or chicken broth and 6 cups or so of whatever squash you are using. I feel like it’s easier to add more liquid later if you want than to try and thicken it.

Or, you can bake the pumpkin at 350°F until soft, about 45 min to an hour and then scoop out the flesh to add to the soup.

Either way, I am always excited for leftovers and freeze whatever is left for future use.

Hello!
I live in the middle-east and I can’t find canned pumpkins, only whole, uncooked ones. This soup sounds absolutely delicious though and I would love to make it, but since I have never cooked with pumpkins before I don’t know what would be the ratio. Can you give me some advice on how to proceed? 🙂

That looks good. I’ve made a very similar soup with butternut squash and I love it. I had wondered about why anyone cans pumpkin or squash since they’re kind of easy to get most of the year but that seems like a good reason!

My mouth is watering and I will be making this for Thanksgiving dinner! I love your blog and just recently started canning (3 weeks ago). Since then I’ve done it every weekend. I think I’m addicted. It’s even better when I get a great deal at the farmers market (25lbs of tomatoes for $10, etc). So far I’ve just used the boil water method, but I am looking into pressure canners. Thanks for the tips and recipes!

Looks awesome. I love the pumpkin/coconut combo. In fact, that could make some killer cookies!

I canned some butternut squash at the end of the season last fall, just to get it off the counter, and this year it made a similar two-minute soup (that I mixed together in that same Le Creucet roaster you’ve got!:)

I made this last night using four cups of sugar pie pumpkin I’d roasted the night before, 1 can of reduced fat coconut milk and a small red onion. AMAZING. I added a couple of teaspoons of salt, which *really* brought out the flavors. It’s a little gritty, so I may strain it before I eat it, but… yum. I’ve been trying and failing to find a good pumpkin curry soup for a while. Now I have work lunches for the rest of the week. THANK YOU!

Curious as to what size can for the coconut milk you’re recommending? I’ve pressure canned six or eight quarts of pumpkin so I can make this soup, would like to get the recipe right, rather than experiment. Thank you.

[…] chips, tomato sauce, and broccoli rabe and white bean soup. Tonight I managed some really yummy curried pumpkin coconut soup, although I used two fresh pie pumpkins that I had previously roasted rather than canned pumpkin. […]

I roasted my pumpkin, pureed it and used my seal a meal to store in 2 cup size bags in the freezer. Made your soup with the frozen defrosted pumpkin. It had the texture of velvet and was oh so delicious. Thanks!